Meet the artist & Gallery Talk: Lawrence Kushner at By Your Light

in 1943. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1965 and the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati where he was ordained as a rabbi in 1969. He is the author of over a dozen books on spirituality and Kabbalah (which he also designed) and has been a commentator on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. He currently serves as the Scholar-in-Residence at The Congregation Emanu-El of San Francisco. He and his wife have three married children and six grandchildren. He lives on Russian Hill in San Francisco where every evening the light is pure magic.

Artist’s Statement

After six years of painting almost daily, I can now pretty much paint what I see. I’m not yet good enough, however, to paint what I don’t.

I have gradually moved away from trying to realistically portray scenes; instead I am learning how to see “out of focus.” This, of course, frees me from details and lets me concentrate on patterns of light. The images deconstruct themselves into reflections, as if, on the surface of rippled water. I assume that makes me an impressionist.

The imagery of the ancient Kabbalists is instructive here. They believed that light is imprisoned in the gross matter of the world. And that would mean that when the painter “gets it right,” that light is seen and effectively freed; a piece of the world is redeemed by the painting! The painter has seen beyond the initial beauty into the primal light that is its source.

To put paint on canvas in such a way that the eye never, ever tires; there is always another nuance, angle, perspective on the canvas. Genuine art must be inexhaustible, always something new to notice—over and over again.

Art above: Tree in the Middle of the Garden